Half Welcome

Missionaries’ popular mission strategies may not sometimes go contrary to the leading of the Holy Spirit, but some of those may give just very small space for the Holy Spirit to work into. That the Holy Spirit's assistance is half welcome!

A story is told to a missionary who met his church members to announce his 24 night’s evangelistic seminar plan. He required each of his members to bring 1 friend each night until the end of the seminar. A lady, one of his members, who is very excited about evangelism said, “I suppose to bring three.” I already calculate it and I’m worried that we’ll run short of materials and budget for snacks,” replied the missionary. Sometimes our strategies are defective because we have a very small space that the Holy Spirit can hardly work freely!

I had been assisting evangelistic effort and many times what I had discovered surprisingly was that those uninvited, unregistered or latecomers’ guest, who come halfway to the end of the seminar, become one of the candidates for baptism.

In our missionary endeavors, our methods of labor must see to it that the Holy Spirit is welcome in every detail so He can work freely. Sometimes our methods are too human that demonstrate lack of faith. The worse thing is when we do not give room for the Holy Spirit to work into. There may be times that the Holy Spirit impressed us to conduct evangelistic meeting but we did not obey because we feel we lack budget.

Touching people's lives to commit to the Savior is the work of the Holy Spirit. But it doesn't mean we need to stop finding creative and effective means to evangelize but creative ways of sharing the good news is not the substitute of the Holy Spirit. But it doesn’t mean just sitting down and leave the result to the Holy Spirit. We must find the vessels (methods) so the Holy Spirit could use them.

The real issue is not whether to eliminate our strategies or not, but it is how much space you give and how open is it for the Holy Spirit to work in. If we love the people as Jesus and Paul did then we should study them carefully, learning how to reach them. We need to develop methods with all our wisdom and ability that could lift up Jesus in all His beauty. Make Him as attractive that His name be glorified.